"What about Miss Abbott? Over — " a vile vision of Tessa without her head.
"Didn't they tell you?"
"No. Over."
"Throat cut. Over."
A second vision, this time of her killer's fist as it ripped off her necklace to clear the way for the knife. Wolfgang was explaining what he did next.
"Number one, I tell my boys, leave the doors closed. Nobody's alive in there. Anybody opening the doors is going to have a very bad time. I leave one group to light a fire and keep watch. I drive the other group back to the Oasis. Over."
"Question. Over." Woodrow was struggling to hold on.
"What's your question, Mr. Chancery? Come in, please. Over."
"Who opened the jeep? Over."
"The police. Soon as the police arrived, my boys get the hell out the way. No one likes police. No one likes to be arrested. Not up here. Lodwar police came first, now we've got the flying squad, plus some guys from Moi's personal Gestapo. My boys are locking the till and hiding the silver, except I haven't got any silver. Over."
Another delay while Woodrow wrestled for rational words.
"Was Bluhm wearing a safari jacket when they set out for Leakey's place? Over."
"Sure. Old one. More a waistcoat. Blue. Over."
"Did anyone find a knife at the scene of the murder? Over."
"No. And it was some knife, believe me. A panga with a Wilkinson blade. Went through Noah like butter. One swing. Same with her. Vump. The woman was stripped naked. Lot of bruising. Did I say that? Over."
No, you didn't say that, Woodrow told him silently. You omitted her nakedness completely. The bruising also. "Was there a panga in the four-track when they set out from your lodge? Over."
"I never knew an African yet who didn't take his panga on safari, Mr. Chancery."
"Where are the bodies now?"
"Noah, what's left of him, they give him to his tribe. Miss Abbott, the police sent a motor dinghy for her. Had to cut the jeep roof off. Borrowed our cutting equipment. Then strap her to the deck. No room for her downstairs. Over."
"Why not?" But he was already wishing he hadn't asked.
"Use your imagination, Mr. Chancery. You know what happens to corpses in this heat? You want to fly her down to Nairobi, you better cut her up or she won't get into the hold."
Woodrow had a moment of mental numbness and when he woke from it he heard Wolfgang saying yes, he had met Bluhm once before. So Woodrow must have asked him the question, although he hadn't heard it himself.
"Nine months back. Bear-leading a party of fat cats in the aid game. World food, world health, world expense accounts. Bastards spent a mountain of money, wanted receipts for twice the amount. I tell them to get fucked. Bluhm liked that. Over."
"How did he seem to you this time? Over."
"What's that mean?"
"Was he different in any way? More excitable or strange or anything?"
"What are you talking about, Mr. Chancery?"
"I mean — do you think it possible he was on something? High on something, I mean?" He was floundering. "Well, like — I don't know-cocaine or something. Over."
"Sweetheart," said Wolfgang, and the line went cold.
Woodrow was once more conscious of Donohue's probing stare. Sheila had disappeared. Woodrow had the impression she had gone to do something urgent. But what could that be? Why should Tessa's death require the urgent action of the spies? He felt chilly and wished he had a cardigan, yet the sweat was pouring off him.
"Nothing more we can do for you, old boy?" Donohue asked, with peculiar solicitude, still staring down at him with his sick, shaggy eyes. "Little glass of something?"
"Thank you. Not at present."
They knew, Woodrow told himself in fury as he returned downstairs. They knew before I did that she was dead. But that's what they want you to believe: we spies know more about everything than you do, and sooner.
"High Commissioner back yet?" he asked, shoving his head round Mildren's door.
"Any minute."
"Cancel the meeting."
Woodrow did not head directly for Justin's room. He looked in on Ghita Pearson, Chancery's most junior member, friend and confidante of Tessa. Ghita was dark-eyed, fair-haired, Anglo-Indian and wore a caste mark on her forehead. Locally employed, Woodrow rehearsed, but aspires to make the Service her career. A distrustful frown crossed her brow as she saw him close the door behind him.
"Ghita, this one's strictly for you, OK?" She looked at him steadily, waiting. "Bluhm. Dr. Arnold Bluhm. Yes?"
"What about him?"
"Chum of yours." No response. "I mean you're friendly with him."
"He's a contact." Ghita's duties kept her in daily touch with the relief agencies.
"And a chum of Tessa's, obviously." Ghita's dark eyes made no comment. "Do you know other people at Bluhm's outfit?"
"I ring Charlotte from time to time. She's his office. The rest are field people. Why?" The Anglo-Indian lilt to her voice that he had found so alluring. But never again. Never anybody again.
"Bluhm was in Lokichoggio last week. Accompanied."
A third nod, but a slower one, and a lowering of the eyes.
"I want to know what he was doing there. From Loki he drove across to Turkana. I need to know whether he's made it back to Nairobi yet. Or maybe he returned to Loki. Can you do that without breaking too many eggs?"
"I doubt it."
"Well, try." A question occurred to him. In all the months he had known Tessa, it had never presented itself till now. "Is Bluhm married, d'you know?"
"I would imagine so. Somewhere down the line. They usually are, aren't they?"
They meaning Africans? Or they meaning lovers? All lovers?
"But he hasn't got a wife here? Not in Nairobi. Or not so far as you've heard. Bluhm hasn't."
"Why?" — softly, in a rush. "Has something happened to Tessa?"
"It may have done. We're finding out."
Reaching the door to Justin's room, Woodrow knocked and went in without waiting for an answer. This time he did not lock the door behind him but, hands in pockets, leaned his broad shoulders against it, which for as long as he remained there had the same effect.
Justin was standing with his elegant back to him. His neatly groomed head was turned to the wall and he was studying a graph, one of several ranged around the room, each with a caption of initials in black, each marked in steps of different colors, rising or descending. The particular graph that held his attention was titled RELATIVE INFRASTRUCTURES 2005–2010 and purported, so far as Woodrow could make out from where he stood, to predict the future prosperity of African nations. On the windowsill at Justin's left stood a line of potted plants that he was nurturing. Woodrow identified jasmine and balsam, but only because Justin had made gifts of these to Gloria.
"Hi, Sandy," Justin said, drawing out the "Hi."
"Hi."
"I gather we're not assembling this morning. Trouble at mill?"
The famous golden voice, thought Woodrow, noticing every detail as if it were fresh to him. Tarnished by time but guaranteed to enchant, as long as you prefer tone to substance. Why am I despising you when I'm about to change your life? From now until the end of your days there will be before this moment and after it and they will be separate ages for you, just as they are for me. Why don't you take your bloody jacket off? You must be the only fellow left in the Service who goes to his tailor for tropical suits. Then he remembered he was still wearing his own jacket.
"And you're all well, I trust?" Justin asked in that same studied drawl of his. "Gloria not languishing in this awful heat? The boys both flourishing and so forth?"
"We're fine." A delay, of Woodrow's manufacture. "And Tessa is up-country," he suggested. He was giving her one last chance to prove it was all a dreadful mistake.